Wednesday, March 29, 2017

How (and why) the CIA targets *culture* - INTRO

I have a number of posts simultaneously under construction, so to speak, but am also otherwise too busy to devote much time to them, so I've decided to post this segment now.


When the CIA is ordered to conduct covert action undertaken in an allied country, the covert action has geopolitical objectives, as in the case of conducting covert action against a hostile country, but also has political implications locally in the host country. The characteristics differ, however, in that one objective is to artificially prop up the alliance with between the governments, which begs the question however, in this case, as to what the CIA and Japan’s own secret intelligence service, the Public Security Intelligence Agency (the “Ko-an-sho”) could seek to achieve by collaborating to undermine certain Japanese cultural traditions (e.g., Zen Buddhism, the Noh, Kinko-ryu (Fuke-shu) shakuhachi), while promoting Evangelical Christian missionaries, for example, and corrupted (and/or dumbed-down) versions of Fuke-shu shakuhachi.

First, there is a big picture (geopolitical) issue in that Japan, historically, as a country in East Asia has developed in a cultural milieu informed primarily by the universalistic teachings of Confucianism and Buddhism. One objective of the covert US foreign policy targeting culture is to alienate Japan from its cultural roots, aiming to culturally divide-and-conquer East Asia as a whole. The respective governments apparently want to level any cultural differences that might facilitate forms of social conscience that might serve to give the people pause and question the collective agenda being pursued by the government in Japan following the lead of the US. Meanwhile, the personal objectives of the people in government include, as has been demonstrated—with respect to ‘hereditary politicians’ (http://www.observingjapan.com/2008/07/banning-hereditary-politicians.html) in Japan and multi-generational CIA officer families in Japan, the hereditary inheritance of public office. A second aspect pertains to “the devil is in the details,” as the saying goes. “Diversity” was a buzzword in the Obama administration, reflecting an increasingly insecure US position in a post-Cold War world where the order should return to something more actually diverse (and normal) than the bipolar alignment with one-or-the-other of the dueling superpowers. Diversity is a natural occurrence, as demonstrated by evolutionary biology and the diversity among human cultures and languages, for example. Insofar as democracy involves a problem-solving discourse among members of society, diversity of opinion can result in more ideas being put forth in the course of determining the course of social development. Diversity is something that has to evolve against a common background, however, if the divergence is to be mutually intelligible and social cohesion maintained. True diversity cannot be imposed on a society, and if democracy represents a form of dialectical problem solving, most forms of diversity will resolve in the transience from one set of problems to another. That definition may not jibe with one that posits diversity as referring to radically irreconcilable difference (e.g., species level), which is another issue according to this schema. Take religion in Japan, for example. No more than 1% of the population of Japan has ever espoused Christianity as their religious belief system, even though there has been freedom of religion since the 19th century. Does that mean that religious diversity doesn’t exist in Japan? Hardly, I should think, as is shown by the large number of Buddhist sects that have been established over the ages, some with belief systems encompassing diametrically opposed elements.

It might occur to some readers knowledgeable of Japan that I have overlooked Shinto, which is often characterized as the “native” religion of Japan. I have not overlooked Shinto, however, as nativism has been a theme that the USA has sought to exploit in Japan consciously since it rehabilitated Japanese that were had been imprisoned and were awaiting trial as war criminals—including the grandfather (Kishi Nobusuke) of Sinzo Abe, the current Prime Minister current embroiled in a scandal (Moritomo Gakuen) involving a nationalistic elementary school accused of promoting such reactionary nativist teachings. Shinto has been associated with nativism and militarism at various points in Japanese history because it has been exploited for political purposes as a form of particularism in opposition to, for example, the influence of the overtly universalistic teachings of Buddhism and Confucianism. To the CIA, Shinto particularism is a form of ideological currency in Japanese history that resonates with the notion of American exceptionalism in that of the United States. Accordingly, it is an ideology that can be exploited in the divide-and-conquer objective pursued through a modus operandi that encompasses interfering in cultural affairs in civil society.

It bears emphasizing that the CIA has been seeking to have the pacifist clause, Article 9, of the Constitution of Japan, which had been drawn up by Americans, eliminated within a few years of its promulgation. Nominally, the USA had communism in its sights, but the behind the scenes diplomatic efforts (since declassified; i.e., FRUS documents such as those submitted to the Court and posted below) to support reactionary Japanese politicians who had been awaiting trial for war crimes and who favored eliminating the war-as-a-means-of-foreign-policy renouncing Article 9 represents a foreign policy that was diametrically opposed to the official foreign policy publically espoused by the government of the US at the time. Meanwhile, the Cold War ended about 10 years before the formation of the ultra-nationalist political organization known as the Nippon Kaigi in 1997 (e.g., https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/03/abe-nippon-kaigi-japan-far-right/). Furthermore, communism, as an economic system, has all but been supplanted in China, but the promotion of nativist politicians in Japan by the CIA continues in the form of Shinzo Abe, Taro Aso, Toru Hashimoto, etc. I have posted links to some of the scholarly studies, etc., submitted to the Court about Abe’s grandfather and the founding of the LDP with funding from the CIA; however, I have not traced the Abe and Aso families connections to the Meiji Restoration. The family of Aso (Abe’s current Finance Minister and a former Prime Minister), in particular, and Abe, to a lesser degree, were directly connected to the Meiji Oligarchy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiji_oligarchy), the policies of which gave rise to what is generally described as a form of fascism in WWII era Japan under so-called State Shinto. Several pages of court filings are posted below with relevant quotes from scholarly publications, links, etc.


There are divide-and-rule machinations at various levels, intra- and inter-nationally, each of which will require more in-depth treatment, but the foregoing can be seen to describe an overview of a modus operandi aimed at coalescing a ‘home team’, so to speak, around a form of nationalism that lends itself to military adventurism, while dividing the opposition so as to be unable to put up a unified front of democratic resistance to the hegemonic aims of the ruling political clique of hereditary politicians and their cronies/cohorts internationally. 






Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Who is Paul Swanson? Who is Karin Swanson?

To start with, a somewhat tentative connection between the two is evident in that they were both instructors at Oberlin College, in Tokyo, in the early 2000s.


SPRING 2002

Buddhist Thought and Practice 0-1 Credit
Paul Swanson EXCO-316-01
This course provides an introduction to the history, philosophy, and practice of Buddhism. This is open to people of all religious backgrounds, provided they are sincerely interested in the teachings of Buddha. The course will be taught from a practitioner’s perspective, and will meet 2 hours a week.























Water Polo 0-1 Credit
Karin Swanson EXCO-115-01

We will learn all the basics of Water Polo, focusing on treading, ball skills, and some swim conditioning. All levels are welcome. We will be practicing with the water polo club and drawing from their collective knowledge and resources. There will be at least three women’s intercollegiate tournaments this spring, and two co-ed tournaments. Practice will be two to three afternoons a week.

























It appears that Jeff and Mark are their sons due to the resemblance to their presumed mother, Karin, but she is not on Facebook, and there are no affirmative sources to verify that. The time frames are not an exact match, however, assuming that they were divorced and Paul remarried and had more children with his second wife, Yuko. I can’t rule out some other degree of familial relationship between Paul and Jeff, and Mark. There is no biographical information showing that Karin grew up in Japan, however, so it doesn’t seem that Paul and Karin were siblings. At any rate, this disclaimer just clarifies that I have made an educated guess as to the degree of familial relationship between said individuals. Given the Facebook connections between Mark, Jeff and the others, however, it does appear that they are related. Moreover, there would have been no reason for Eric Haruki Swanson (https://hcommons.org/members/ehswans/), a PhD candidate at Harvard, to delete his Facebook page after my messaging Mark that I suspected he was CIA. As described below, Paul claims to have grown up in Wakayama, Japan, and Jeff claims to be from Shingu, in Wakayama, while he lives in Minnesota, where Mark attended college. Paul Swanson claims, however, to have only four children, and mentions only one wife. Is he dissimulating? Or do they belong to some extended family of missionaries, for example? 


With regard to Paul Swanson, the biographical blurb for him on the page shown below states:
Paul is an MK (“missionary kid”) who was born and raised in Japan. He has four children and one wife, is a Bob Dylan freak, edits the Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, and has lost the battle against an expanding waistline and becoming a “senior citizen.” He did his graduate studies at Sophia University, the University of Tokyo, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His dual areas of specialization are Japanese Religions (Shugendo) and Buddhist Studies (T’ien-t’ai/Tendai Buddhism).
He teaches at a Buddhism affiliated college in Aichi Prefecture.























I’ve read some of Paul Swanson’s writings (some papers available on the above-linked page), and in all fairness, have generally found them to be informative conveyances of the thought of important Japanese scholars and the like whose work was otherwise not very accessible to an English language audience. I haven’t seen any pseudo-scholarship in his work, unlike the case with the publications of a number of other suspected intelligence operatives as critiqued on this blog—with more to come. It is to his credit that he is perhaps the only individual I’ve seen thus far who is associated with Christian missionaries that has not evinced demonstrable bigotry in their writings, etc.

A comment on his Facebook page reveals that he grew up in Japan (in Wakayama, apparently).
Paul Swanson: It's part of the Kumano Kodo, near where I grew up.
Jeff Swanson: By Nachi Falls. Lori, Cori, and Lois were there a long time ago.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=102533659825732&set=ecnf.100002072951554&type=3&theater







































With regard to Karin Swanson, she appears on the same webpage from the website of the Columbia University affiliated Kyoto Consortium for Japanese Studies (KCJS) as that for which a screenshot was posted earlier on this blog (http://kyoto-inside-out.blogspot.jp/2017/01/who-is-patricia-pringle-and-diego.html) in relation to Monica Bethe and Noh:

























The biographical blurb for her on that page states:

Karin Swanson teaches Japanese art history at the Center for International Education of Kansai Gaidai University and at Urasenke, a leading school of the tea ceremony in Kyoto. Her areas of specialization include Kyoto painters of the pre-modern period and Buddhist arts. She has specifically developed the Kansai art class at KCJS to underscore the central importance of the area within Japan’s long history of art production. In addition, the class provides a contextual framework for the many opportunities to observe art, both on class visits and independent trips taken by students while in the Kansai area.

Her presumed son, Mark, whom I believe bears a strong resemblance to her, also taught at Kansai Gaidai University for 5 five years: https://jp.linkedin.com/in/mark-swanson-091ba440






















And this is Jeff, to whom his presumed younger brother, Mark, bears a close resemblance and resides in Minnesota, the same state Mark attended university in according to his LinkedIn resume:

STUDENTS NOMINATED FOR FULBRIGHTS
November 7, 1990
Seventeen Kansas University students have been nominated for the Fulbright or Fulbright Travel award for a year of graduate study abroad, KU officials said.
The nominees now must await the decision of both national and bi-national screening committees, said Mary Debicki, director of the KU study abroad office.
The KU nominees, including their hometown, academic area of study and where they would like to study, are:
… Karin Swanson, Lawrence, art history, Japan; …..
There is an online entry for a Karin Lynn Swanson as a resident of North Carolina showing an address in Kyoto: https://northcarolinaresidentdb.com/person/CC129592152257/karin_lynn_swanson

She works as a tour guide for another intelligence front shown below, and the biographical blurb for her on that website states:

Karin Swanson has an M.A. from San Diego State University in Japanese Art History and is a Ph.D candidate at the University of Kansas, focusing on Edo-period paintings and prints, woodblock printed books, and 17th-century painting. She has lived in Kyoto since 1993 and has held lectureships at a number of universities, including the Kyoto Consortium for Japanese Studies, where she worked with Columbia University’s program. She is a member of Kyoto Asian Studies Group as well as a Kyoto Townhouse Association, which promotes this classic but unfortunately rapidly disappearing form of Kyoto architecture. When not lecturing, Karin enjoys attending art exhibitions and auctions as well as both rural and urban hiking.

https://www.contexttravel.com/cities/kyoto/tours/customized-private-tour-of-kyoto





That page features other suspected CIA et al. officers working as tour guides, one of whom was described in the lawsuit, John Benson, who lived in the same apartment building as I did for a number of years and  is also associated with the Durning’s.























Karin Swanson, University of Kansas, 1994:
“Populism in Japanese Art, 1720-1820”
https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=E7mfAAAAMAAJ&pg=PR21&lpg=PR21&dq=%22Karin+Swanson%22,+%22Japanese+art%22&source=bl&ots=W0NMrkYnII&sig=Eku2_MwRejZ9UTOE2uiUzrblSko&hl=ja&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiq0oy1r6_RAhWCkJQKHfn-B_QQ6AEIOzAF#v=onepage&q=%22Karin%20Swanson%22%2C%20%22Japanese%20art%22&f=false




























Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Who are the Swanson’s? (Paul, Karin, Yuko, Jeff, Mark, Eric Haruki, Yukari Inoue, Sophia, and James)?? INTRO

In order to elucidate the institutional instantiation of a neo-feudalistic societal order by the so-called “intelligence community” headed by the United States own CIA (perhaps under the influence of British imperialists?), it is necessary to do an expose on this extended family, which appears to include no fewer than six intelligence operatives.

The group is too large to handle in a single post, and I only intend to examine a couple of individuals in any detail. Paul Swanson appears to have had children with Karin Swanson, presumably his first wife, and Yuko Swanson, presumed to be his current wife.

I’ve had Mark on the radar for a number of years, and he has shown up at the Starbucks during the day on numerous occasions and is an associate of Dan Douglass, a defendant in the lawsuit. It wasn’t until recently, however, that I was able to subject him to further scrutiny, discovering the extent of his family, etc. I will mention in passing that his family is connected to another CIA family in the form of mother and son pair Cindy and Mark Mullins, currently of Auckland, New Zealand. I may have something to say about Mark Mullins in conjunction with Paul Swanson, as they have published together.

On December 31, 2016, after seeing Mark Swanson at the café and being somewhat tiered of the silent menacing presence of the CIA, I sent him an insulting message through Facebook, whereupon he hid information and apparently contacted his brother, Eric Haruki, whom he must have convinced to delete his Facebook account. I had already archived most of that, however, and his Friends list is posted below.  


This INTRO will end with the following links to Facebook pages and the archived material for Eric Haruki (40 images). The next post will briefly introduce Paul and Karin.




Karin Swanson (N/A)



Eric Haruki Swanson (deleted, posted below)